dude gets jailed for have manga child porn

[TheSlyMoogle]

Originally Posted by Professor S

He broke the law, plead guilty, and has been sentenced. Pretty cut and dry to me. On a side note, he sounds like a pretty sleazy guy.

Wow...

I think I'm finally beginning to understand you a bit more Prof.



As far as that goes...

The law is fucking dumb. Germy pretty much found the comment that summed it up.

I still don't understand our society most of the time as far as the child issue goes. The general solution is "Catch a predator, Send them to jail for x amount of time, release them and put them on a list that basically guarantees they will never work again"

Thus not only keeping them from being a productive member of society in some manner, but also not actually helping them towards rehabilitation at all. It's a vicious cycle, and hey the system usually fails to prevent those who violate the law from doing it again.

America the beautiful. The place where we'll spend 4 years investigating and convicting someone for beating off to cartoon kiddie porn. Yeah, real great place to be sometimes.

[Vampyr]

Well, the guy is obviously creepy and I would not want to hang out with him.

But this is a really stupid law. No real people were harmed - it's fiction. He should have the right to look at that if he wants to.

[Professor S]

There are two issues here that we need to avoid confusing:

1) Was a law broken?

2) Is the law just?

The answer to the first is obvious. Yes, a law was broken and the breaker of the law should be held accountable. If we are going to be a civil society we can't subjectively decide what laws we enforce and what laws are "stupid" and not enforce. If you don't like the law, work to change it, but expecting it to not be enforced is silly.

As for the law being just, I couldn't really say. I would have to see evidence of cartoon child porn and its relation to action. If there is evidence that it does increase the likelihood of a pederast violating a kid, the law is just. If not, then it is not just. Laws are meant to protect individuals. If this law does, in fact, protect the innocent I think it is just. If it does not protect anyone, then it is simply unnecessary censorship and the government should not be involved.

If I were to guess I would say that porn like that helps people with penchants for pedophilia deal with those feelings without touching kids, but I would only be guessing.

In any case, I'm not sure how my response garnered a "wow".

[TheGame]

Originally Posted by Professor S

As for the law being just, I couldn't really say. I would have to see evidence of cartoon child porn and its relation to action. If there is evidence that it does increase the likelihood of a pederast violating a kid, the law is just. If

If a study was done that proved that watching violent movies/cartoons caused people to commit more acts of violence, do you think it would be just to throw people in jail for 6 months for watching something with violence in it?

[TheSlyMoogle]

Originally Posted by Professor S

If we are going to be a civil society we can't subjectively decide what laws we enforce and what laws are "stupid" and not enforce. If you don't like the law, work to change it, but expecting it to not be enforced is silly.

This is what garnered the "WOW" you just hadn't said it.

too tired to really coherently type it out but laws are constantly bent an broken, and the fact that they are is constantly ignored depending on the law. There are lots of laws that are now completely ignored (I.E. did you know oral sex is illegal in like 15 states even in the privacy of your own home? I mean technically police could bust you up for doing it, but you don't ever see that happen).

Just because laws exist it doesn't mean you should follow them blindly because they exist. That's ignorant. If history has taught use anything sometimes the best way to change the law is to treat it as though it doesn't exist.

This guy with no record of child abuse and no further evidence of Kiddie porn got a raw deal because he enjoy looking at naked anime children. He lost a year of his life over something as silly as that. Hell maybe the cartoons were the only thing keeping him from actually molesting a kid, and when he gets released from prison he'll actually do it.



P.S. Fuck the Establishment. It should be torn down and rebuilt from the ground up.

[Vampyr]

Even if there was a 100% correlation between people watching anime porn depicting kids having sex and them actually committing pedophilia, this law would still be unjust and wrong.

You can't punish someone because they might do something, someday. Probably. Maybe.

There are countries out there where every type of porn is illegal. Even if you don't watch porn, you do not want to live in those countries. It's important for us to protect everyone's rights to view fictional entertainment even if most people find it disturbing (professional wrestling, anyone?). Because one day they may come for what -you- enjoy.

But good luck fighting against this law - you'll be going up against the single most powerful phrase in politics: "It's to protect the children." People hear that and they are automatically for it, regardless of if it violates a person's rights or not.

But if I ever get the opportunity to sit on a jury where fiction is being treated as reality, I'll be sure to argue as hard as I can to see the person is declared innocent.

[Typhoid]

regardless of if it violates a person's rights or not.

It does violate someone's rights, to be fair. The guy who had the manga.


Me and Bond talked about this last night, and then I wondered:

"Are they going to try and arrest the people who drew the picture/video? If owning cartoon porn is bad, making it must be 10x worse."

[KillerGremlin]

I think the law itself is flawed.

Someone in the Digg thread where I found this story commented on how if this guy did not plead guilty and appealed the ruling he may have gotten off. The Supreme Court actually has ruled fairly favorably in cases like this.

[Vampyr]

Originally Posted by Typhoid

It does violate someone's rights, to be fair. The guy who had the manga.

That's exactly what I was saying.

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by TheSlyMoogle

This is what garnered the "WOW" you just hadn't said it.

too tired to really coherently type it out but laws are constantly bent an broken, and the fact that they are is constantly ignored depending on the law. There are lots of laws that are now completely ignored (I.E. did you know oral sex is illegal in like 15 states even in the privacy of your own home? I mean technically police could bust you up for doing it, but you don't ever see that happen).

Just because laws exist it doesn't mean you should follow them blindly because they exist. That's ignorant. If history has taught use anything sometimes the best way to change the law is to treat it as though it doesn't exist.

For the record, I never justified the fact that some laws are enforced more than others. There are lots of blue laws that SHOULD be eliminated instead of ignored. Ignoring any law creates a precedent that any law can and will be ignored or selectively enforced. Selective enforcement is oppressive and unjust, and making is a moral sin as well as legal sin.

Reading your response though, you feel some laws just shouldn't be respected. Well then who gets to make the decision on what laws should be enforced, and what laws shouldn't? What reasoning are they using when deciding what laws should be enforced? How much money is involved? How much power can be transferred through such arbitrary decision making? These ideas you're expressing are dangerous.

This guy with no record of child abuse and no further evidence of Kiddie porn got a raw deal because he enjoy looking at naked anime children. He lost a year of his life over something as silly as that. Hell maybe the cartoons were the only thing keeping him from actually molesting a kid, and when he gets released from prison he'll actually do it.

What if the guy had thousands of files of this? What if he was distributing, illegally, and this was a way to shut him down? There is a lot we do not know. This is reason why there are laws and the expectation of equal treatment under them. This removes the emotional/sympathetic aspect. All we do know is that he broke the law, and admitted to doing so. Therefore: he should face the penalties demanded by that law.

P.S. Fuck the Establishment. It should be torn down and rebuilt from the ground up.

Ok, now I think I understand you a whole lot better. If you destroy the establishment, which includes a democratically elected republic, who gets to rebuild it and what system should we adopt? See, its a lot easier to say "fuck the world" than it is to think rationally and work positively to address flaws.

There is no way to remove the human factor from the systemic governing of a society. Destroy the establishment if you like, but what establishment will take its place, and who will be making the decisions, and in what way will they be chosen? Justice is not devoid of corruption, because humans enforce justice and humans are corrupt. When any decision is made about determining how people should be treated by a government, we always need to ask: "By whose standard?"

This is why laws MUST be clear and enforced if they are remain valid and civilization is to progress. You cannot measure you personal activity against a constantly changing yard stick. To make enforcement contingent on someone's feelings and empathy is to be oppressed by that person.